"Be careful on the way."
She handed her husband a salmon rice-ball bento and saw him out, then watched her son climb onto the kindergarten bus.
Of course, the goodbye cheek-kiss was nonnegotiable.
In a society this close to falling apart, an ordinary yet fulfilling routine like this felt like a dream—something the younger Hiramaika would never have dared to hope for.
Ten years ago, she'd nearly died in a Gastrea attack. The price of surviving was that the organs and tissue the Gastrea had eaten were replaced with machinery, and she became a successful case of the New Human Creation Plan, joining the fight against the Gastrea.
Later, the Cursed Children appeared and replaced people like them—the mechanized soldiers. Not long after that, humanity suffered a crushing defeat in the war against the Gastrea. They erected Monoliths to form a defensive line, and the world entered a false peace.
After the war, many surviving super soldiers from the New Human Creation Plan, sick of fighting, chose to retire. Hiramaika was one of them.
She fell in love with an ordinary man and had a son. She abandoned her identity as a super soldier and became a full-time housewife.
Today was her planned deep-clean day. Hiramaika tied the strings of her apron tightly behind her back to psych herself up, checked the weather forecast, tossed the accumulated dirty laundry into the washer and hit Start, then pulled on rubber gloves.
She'd already made up her mind: today, she was going to tackle the grime she usually avoided—the gunk in the bathroom tile grout, and the cleaning around the toilet.
When the washing machine chimed that it was done, she got up from the bathroom, gathered the clean clothes in her arms, and nudged the sliding door open with her foot onto the corridor.
The sky was indescribably beautiful; piled-up clouds drifted by in silence; the sun shone brilliantly. Perfect weather for hanging laundry.
Just then, a faint doorbell rang inside the house. Hiramaika hurriedly set the laundry basket down and ran to the entryway, wiping her hands on her apron as she went.
"Coming!"
When she opened the front door, Hiramaika froze in place, stunned.
Standing outside was a hooded man who radiated a strong, threatening presence. Hiramaika was certain she'd never seen him before—she didn't know him at all.
And no matter how you looked at him, he didn't seem like a good person.
"…"
"You're Hiramaika?"
He spoke in a flat, monotone voice. A flurry of photographs was tossed at her, scattering across the floor when she didn't catch them.
Every person in the photos was Hiramaika. And she realized—she looked younger in them…
They were pictures from when she was still a mechanized soldier.
"—Ngh!"
The instant she understood what those photos meant, Hiramaika snapped into a defensive stance and pulled a handgun from her pocket.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
After so many years as a housewife, Hiramaika's accuracy and reaction speed had dulled badly—but at point-blank range like this, there was no way to miss.
And yet the man at the door didn't dodge or flinch, nor was he struck. The bullets from her pistol stopped in midair as if they'd slammed into an invisible wall.
Hiramaika's eyes widened.
"Repulsion Force Field? You're—?!"
Bang!
She didn't get to finish.
With the gunshot, a violent impact slammed into Hiramaika's body and sent her flying backward. She crashed into the wall inside the house, knocking over—and shattering—a vase.
Water spilled from the vase and mixed with her blood, soaking into the carpet beneath her.
"…"
At some point, the man was holding a shotgun. White heat-smoke curled from the barrel—this was a compact, cut-down weapon with a shortened barrel and stock for easier concealment.
Hiramaika pressed a hand to her abdomen. The killing buckshot had torn through her belly without mercy, leaving a fatal wound.
Her handgun had fallen to the floor. She struggled to lift her head.
"You… who are you?"
Her answer was the muzzle of the shotgun aimed at her forehead.
The man pulled the trigger again, finishing her with a second shot.
He didn't spare Hiramaika a glance as she slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood, limp on the floor. He put the shotgun away and quickly left the house.
The moment he stepped out of the entryway, neighbors began poking their heads out one after another, drawn by the gunfire.
Once he'd confirmed he'd reached a safe spot, the man operated his phone.
"This is 'Coyote.' 'Nest,' respond. Mission complete. Awaiting further instructions."
The man was Otagawa Yuya, a mechanized super soldier of Goshoukai, codenamed "Coyote."
He had once carried out a mission with Toyama Hiroki, Takatsukasa Eika, and Utsunomiya Taiji to capture Nursery Rhyme and Scorpio. In the end, only he and Takatsukasa Eika had limped back alive.
Because they'd brought back a flute that could control mouse-type Gastrea—and a lot of useful information—even though the mission failed, neither he nor Takatsukasa Eika received any serious punishment.
After that, he and Takatsukasa Eika were given some time off to ease the fatigue that had piled up in body and mind. Then, not long ago, his leave ended, and he received a new assignment: eliminate Hiramaika, a surviving remnant of the New Human Creation Plan.
"This is 'Nest.' No further instructions for now. Act at your discretion, 'Coyote.'"
A clearly processed voice came from the other end.
"Nest" was their handler. The person was so mysterious—refusing to ever show their face—that Otagawa Yuya had never seen what they really looked like, and didn't know their real name.
Sleepiness surged up, and Otagawa Yuya yawned wide.
Ever since that pursuit mission, even with the time off, he hadn't had a single good night's sleep. He'd grown noticeably haggard.
With no task at hand, he decided to go back to the hotel and sleep first. He was dead tired.
So tired he was a little out of it, Otagawa Yuya didn't watch where he was going on the way back and collided with a passerby.
"What the hell! Are you blind? Watch where you're going!"
The man he'd bumped into had a nasty temper. He grabbed Otagawa Yuya by the collar, his face twisting with rage.
"Hey! Answer me! You think I won't kill you?!"
His left hand yanked Otagawa Yuya's collar. His right hand rose into a fist, held high, like he really was about to smash it into Yuya's face.
And then, with that collar-grab, he got a clear look at Otagawa Yuya's face under the hood.
A gaunt, bluish pallor that brought zombies to mind. Eyes shot through with blood, bulging slightly outward.
Otagawa Yuya glanced at him.
The man shuddered violently, frightened into letting go. When he came back to himself, he ground out a spiteful, "I'll let you off this time," then slunk away.
Clearly, he was the kind who bullied the weak and feared the strong.
Otagawa Yuya hadn't said a single word the entire time. He only stared at the cowardly man as he fled, as if lost in thought.
The man who ran didn't go anywhere else—he went straight back to his rented room.
As if only there could make him feel safe.
He reached to close the door, but a hand suddenly slid in from outside, blocking it from shutting.
Otagawa Yuya pushed the door open and stepped slowly inside without a word, still wearing his hood.
"Y-you… how did you find this place?!"
Panicking, the man kept backing up. Watching Yuya's every movement, he cautiously reached toward the landline phone nearby.
"Y-you… this is illegal entry! It's a crime! I'm calling the police, I'll have them come arrest you… don't come any closer!"
Otagawa Yuya ignored the warning and advanced step by step.
The next second, with no warning and no wind-up at all, he reached out. The naked eye could only barely catch an afterimage—and then his hand clamped over the man's face, preventing him from speaking.
"Mmph! Mmph…!"
The man completely lost it. He thrashed and fought with everything he had, but no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't break free. That hand's strength was terrifying.
Then came a dull thump.
The man's head was crushed like a watermelon, red and white spraying across the wall, the floor, the ceiling—and across Otagawa Yuya's clothes. A thick stench of blood began to spread through the air.
Even though he'd made this gore himself, Otagawa Yuya's body still trembled slightly at the sight. His pupils shrank to needle points.
"Hh—hh—"
His chest heaved violently, his breathing harsh and ugly, like a broken bellows leaking air.
During an assassination, letting an ordinary passerby see his face meant he had to follow them home and kill them quietly—of course.
But he should have killed him in a way that wouldn't draw attention, so he wouldn't spook anyone.
Not like this. Not by crushing the man's head.
Hiramaika's assassination had been different. She was a survivor of the war ten years ago—a remnant of the New Human Creation Plan. To make sure she was dead, he'd used the modified shotgun.
Just now, though… his body had moved on its own. It had crushed the man's head as if his flesh itself hungered for it.
And even now, it felt like his blood and his organs were about to catch fire. The rancid stench of blood in the air made him more and more excited.
He could only raise his hand to cover his eyes, to keep that wash of red from reflecting in them—hoping it might dull the uncontrollable madness inside him.
He tried hard to steady his breathing, but then he felt something sticky under his feet. He lowered his hand and looked down.
Blood… dark blood spreading and flowing across the floor.
And his foot—right now—was standing on something.
When he focused, he realized in horror…
It was the corpse of a mouse?!
"Hh—hh—hh—"
From that moment on, he couldn't control his body anymore. His gaze, as if tugged by some force, slowly turned toward the corpse of the man lying in the pool of blood.
Mice… countless mice. More and more.
Otagawa Yuya saw them gathering from every direction as if drawn by the smell of blood. They clustered around the man's body, tearing at his flesh with sharp teeth, making wet, ripping sounds that made your skin crawl and your hair stand on end.
But those mice were already dead.
They were corpses.
Some had empty sockets where their eyes should have been.
Some had bellies split open, long intestines dragging out behind them.
Some had backs so rotten you could see the pale bone beneath.
They were dead—and yet they could move, and bite, and devour. Moving corpses, nothing left but the purest hunger.
Otagawa Yuya clapped a hand over his mouth and fled the room at top speed, panic and uncertainty in his eyes as if some terrible monster were chasing him.
If anyone else happened to pass by and enter that rental, all they would find was the thick stench of blood—and the man's corpse collapsed by the entryway, his head crushed.
As for pools of blood, and mouse corpses that could move and eat people… there was nothing like that in the room at all.
Otagawa Yuya had already disposed of all his bloodstained clothing on the way back. The shotgun he'd used as the murder weapon was gone as well.
Back at the hotel, exhausted in body and mind, he didn't even bother changing. He flopped onto the bed and fell asleep instantly. In the blink of an eye, he sank into deep sleep, his awareness dropping into a dream.
It was a long dream—vivid, real, and full of grief.
The dream had three stages.
In the first part, he lived a happy, fulfilling life. He had family who cared about him, and he was full of hope for the future.
In the middle part, his family was destroyed by persecution from the church of this country. The calm of ordinary life was gone forever. He watched his home burn into ashes in roaring flames. He watched his family—his wife and child—fall lifeless into a pool of blood. Only he escaped by sheer luck, and from then on he had nothing.
In the last part, to take revenge on the church, he hid in the sewers and used a flute to drive rats. His revenge wasn't only against the church, but against everything in the country. Children above ground were abducted by his rats, turned into rat food and sewer bones. Graves for those who died to his rats and plague became a vast, endless field of unmarked dead.
This nightmare wasn't new. Every time Otagawa Yuya fell asleep, it arrived right on schedule, tormenting him again and again. He never got enough rest, and his mental state grew worse by the day.
And yet, once he woke, he remembered nothing of what he'd dreamed. He only knew he'd slept badly again—that the exhaustion in his body and mind hadn't been eased by the sleep at all.
He felt like… he might be sick.